1994: Faust: Rien

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Rien

C'est rien de Faust....

David Illic: Rien

Rien : Table of the Elements 24 CD

The packaging for Faust's first fully-fledged studio recordings since reforming five years ago is artfully cryptic: no credits save for those on a spine card and a business card carrying the tell-tale x-ray motif (both easily lost!), and the album title is burnished grey on the matt silver CD. With Rien, Faust, the German avant-rock legend of the 70s whose savage electroacoustic forays helped sharpen Euro-rocks cutting edge and paved the way for post-punk experimentalists, 80s Industrialists and 90s Ambient artists around the globe, have rediscovered the mystique that was an essential part of their creative being; a Dadaist bent that manifested itself in both performance and packaging alike. (Remember that intriguing transparent package that was their debut album?)

Anyone listening to the raw documentary footage of Faust's 1993 London comeback gigs (both rather ho-hum performances, if the truth be told) released as The Faust Concerts 1 & The Faust Concerts 2 (Table of The Elements), would have been hard pushed to discover what all the fuss was about. Never mind that the antics with jackhammers and chainsaws were now run of the mill fare; what irked was Faust's apparent air of nostalgic importance, something which ran counter to the searching, iconoclastic forays of yore.

Rien, however, is rattlingly contemporary, thanks to the production hand of Jim O'Rourke, who has taken the rudiments of Faust's adventurous spirit and transplanted it into a wholly modern context. The influence of this most exacting sound sculptor has effectively created something akin to a dialogue between the contrasting experimental apparel of 70s Prog rock and 90s purveyors of the Ambient aesthetic There are Industrial mantras of almost crushing intensity, neo-psychedelic jams, concrete interludes, even a passage of bitter-sweet irony in the plundering of Gorecki's Third Symphony (the additional chorale of Industrial noise serving only to heighten the tragic air of Gorecki's original) This is Faust resharpened and revitalised; no longer part of rock's dinosaur parade, but a reshaped, refreshing, challenging voice in 90s experimentalism.

Ed Pinsent: Faust

Faust's latest offering is Rien, TABLE OF THE ELEMENTS, CR (CHROMIUM) 24,1996. It has been greeted with caution by many listeners, but we at the Sound Projector give it an unequivocal huzzah. Jim O'Rourke was brought in as producer. From a "Wire" interview, I was worried he might be trying to recreate himself as a new Uwe N. Such pointless fetishism and preciousness is not unknown, even in the world of avant-garde rock. In fact, O'Rourke does a great job - he quietly selects and stitches tapes together to produce a compelling listen - although sadly, without any of the heavy duty jarring edits like on the first LP. Nonetheless a real winner. It opens with a 10 second silent track, or is it really silent? It signals to me that we're picking up precisely where the Hamburg concert left off. The spoken phrase 'C'est Rien De Faust' kicks off proceedings (and recurs at the very end, after the spoken credits) before that wonderful organ and drumbeat sound crashes in, simultaneously alarming and joyous, a near-trademark sound making a welcome return. As the abstract murk seeps out of the speakers into your room, a species of 'narrative' event-unfolding comes across to this listener's subconscious mind. Somewhere a man is trudging over an industrial dump and calling for his children. Or have I dreamed that bit? The sixth Track uses helicopter sounds, overlaid classical music and Keiji Haino on auto-pilot screeching and grunting - it's a Fantastic voyage through unknown territory. The whole record speaks in riddles, and the 'blank' package design has taken a leaf out of Keiji Haino's book. A limited vinyl issue costing around 17-18 UKP has been spotted; probably no longer available by the time you read this. The same anonymous packaqe wrapped round a slab of heavy black plastic.

JS Adams (Artbear): Musical Bearings

European avant-guardians Faust speak a language uniquely their own; burning, tearing and slashing preconceptions on recording technique and composition, advancing the concept of 'studio-as-instrument' in a singular pastiche. An audio cement mixer, twisting shards of jazz, musique concret, rock, Dada and folk into a furious re-assemblage and rediscovery. Limits are non-existent, the band constantly probing the edges of sound: string quartet broadcasts met air-hammer interference; folk melodies are truncated by electronic bursts; questions in French are answered in German. On their first studio effort in over 20 year, Rien (Table of Elements), composer/studio-whiz Jim O'Rourke chores the production tasks. The result is a strangely familiar, yet continued challenging, construction; the welcome return of Faust's personal vocabulary.